Alabamians may be deciding whether the sources of so-called "dark money" will have to be revealed after state Sen. Arthur Orr introduced a bill last month to put that question before voters in a constitutional amendment.
The bill (SB356) by Orr, a Republican from Decatur, would affect special interest groups whose main activity is getting involved in political campaigns.
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The personal information of thousands of low-level sex offenders could soon become public after Washington’s highest court ruled in favor Thursday of releasing a statewide database to a Franklin County woman.
The Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision reverses a ruling in King County Superior Court that the State Patrol couldn’t release the names, addresses and other information of Level 1 sex offenders to Donna Zink.
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Read More… from Washington’s high court OKs releasing names of low-level sex offenders
The D.C. Board of Medicine, which regulates doctors, nurses and other health professionals, has done just about everything possible that could violate the Open Meetings Act, failing to follow the statute in at least four distinct ways, according to the watchdog Open Government Office, an independent agency of D.C. government.
In a strongly worded opinion issued Thursday, the Office concluded the board misunderstood and misapplied the law and warned that the problems may have spread further in the parent agency, D.C. Department of Health.
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Read More… from D.C. Board of Medicine keeping the public in the dark
Private universities are pushing for protections from lawsuits stemming from a requirement that they now make records from their police forces available to the public.
State Rep. Kirk Schuring, R-Canton, has submitted a bill that would give private institutions such as the University of Dayton and Wittenberg University the same legal protections afforded to public colleges and universities.
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Read More… from Ohio bill would give private universities protection
From the Federal Election Commission’s suggestion that it might finally begin scrutinizing donations to super PACs from mystery limited liability corporations (LLCs) to the revelations in the Panama Papers, LLCs are very in right now.
The leak of the Panama Papers reportedly shows the use of offshore shell companies to hide cash by many high-profile foreign figures, from highly-paid soccer star Lionel Messi to the prime minister of Iceland, but the lack of Americans implicated in the investigations has raised eyebrows in the international community.
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Read More… from Why are there so many anonymous corporations in Delaware?
Ohio in 2014 launched a searchable database of the state's expenditures, allowing residents to browse how their money was being spent by both the state and participating local governments.
Government watchdogs view it as a model for something that could be applied across the nation. "It's a transparency initiative rooted in the concept of making the government small and the individual big," said Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, who launched OhioCheckBook.com through his office.
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Read More… from How is the government spending your money? Ohio’s figured it out
The Senate has given key approval to legislation that provides a process for releasing dash cam videos of police shootings and protects the last utterances of victims in 911 calls.
The Senate on Tuesday voted 40-0 to give the bill second reading.
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Read More… from South Carolina Senate gives key approval to police dash cam bill
State lawmakers rejected a proposal Wednesday to treat the administrative records of people who work for Colorado’s judicial branch like the records of those who work for the executive and legislative branches and all local governments in Colorado.
HB 16-1346 would have made civil or internal investigative files on judicial department employees subject to the Colorado Open Records Act.
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Two measures making their way through different political processes in California seek to increase transparency. One is a ballot initiative; the other is a bill. Each one’s supporters say it would cut down on backroom deals. But transparency can be a double-edged sword.
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Read More… from California measures seek to increase government transparency
In Michigan, transparency comes at a cost—and a seemingly arbitrary one at that.
The Society of Professional Journalists chapter at Central Michigan University recently conducted a FOIA audit of the state’s 15 public universities. It asked for a year’s worth of information on expenses from the university presidents and governing boards, and also police reports on campus sexual assaults. The goal: to compare how universities respond to requests for public information, and how much they charge.
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Read More… from How ‘the public is priced out of public records’ by Michigan universities
